NC
Subject and Topic:
Science: Acids and Alkalis
Materials and their properties; Acids and bases
Focus pupils and school:
A large multi-ethnic comprehensive.
Context
A Year 8 teacher used simulations on the BGFL Secondary Area-
Birmingham Grid for Learning to support two recently arrived
Somali pupils who were new to English. This site has information
plus resources and activities on all NC subjects in all key
stages. Each subject has activities for teachers and students
with whiteboard versions available for many activities. Many
of the activities are translated into Arabic, Bengali, Chinese,
English, Somali and Urdu.
The Lesson
Using the interactive whiteboard version of the litmus test
simulation activity from Birmingham Grid for Learning www.bgfl.org
the teacher showed the litmus test experiment. Paired pupils
discussed each substance in turn and made their predictions
as to acid or alkali. The two new pupils used a PC to follow
the activity in Somali, discussing their own predictions in
Somali.
Later, the pupils worked in small groups on the ‘Universal
Indicator’ activity on PCs. Each pupil in the group had
a table to record the results, showing substance, indicator
colour, PH value and Acid/Alkali/Neutral. Each pupil had to
‘write this up’. The teacher gave the two newly
arrived pupils a model statement - ‘Oven cleaner has a
PH value of 14. It is an alkali’. They used this statement
to produce similar sentences of their own about the other nine
substances they had virtually tested.
At homework club, the pupils were able to visit the Somali version
of the activity. One of the pupils who had not studied Science
previously returned to the activity on a number of occasions
to check her understanding and ‘get it right’.
Strategies for teaching and learning
EAL and how ICT supported these.
activating prior knowledge: predicting outcomes in pairs after
watching a virtual experiment
rich contextual background for comprehensible input: use of
simulation, use of L1
comprehensible output: key visual - table and using model
statements as a scaffold to writing
relationship between form and function:
learner independence – pupils able to return to the
simulation through the homework club
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